2008 Summary
The first full year of recording with the new software comes to an end. After the disappointing summer of 2007, this year served up an even worse offering. Highlight of the year weather-wise, for me at least, was the massive thunderstorm and associated downpour of the 14th May. The bungalow in Exeter Road that was hit is still having its roof rebuilt as I write this on New Year's Day. The record daily and hourly rain set that night might stand for a while.
The temperature got tantalisingly close to 30°C a couple of times, but never actually got there. Strangely, the lowest temperature occurred in April. Rather pleasingly, the coldest day was the very last one.
There are a couple of dodgy numbers below caused by the station's rather
annoying habit of very occasionally throwing random readings into the
pot...
The high heat index of 40°C at 6 o'clock on a March morning is obviously wrong,
but as heat index isn't widely used in the UK (below 25°C it's the same as the
air temperature) I haven't bothered to correct that one.
The low dew point was actually -5.7°C at 03:06 on 23rd March. This reading went
haywire on the 17th December but I didn't notice until too late. I think it was
caused by the suspect-looking 6% low humidity reading that day. Lowest humidity
was actually 35% at 13:37 on 11th May.
Anyway, here's hoping that 2009 will provide a better summer.
